


The Last Stance (Steve Rogers x Reader)

by Steggy



Series: Tumblr Prompts [6]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Tumblr Prompt, age of ultron scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-04 23:42:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6680704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steggy/pseuds/Steggy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like Bucky, Hydra had gotten their hands on you and turned you into a weapon. And Steve can't make the same mistakes he did the first time. Yet, things are different when robots start emerging from the ground and you fall into rhythm, fighting right beside him until the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Stance (Steve Rogers x Reader)

**Author's Note:**

> I mention the Bucky situation in here, and I didn't realize until after that I'm in Civil War mindset and he didn't find Bucky yet in AoU. WHOOOOOPS
> 
>  
> 
> bother me on twitter @alyjevans or on tumblr @spangledcap & @poorcap

“ _ **She never misses, she never quits, and never loses. If you’re alive, it’s because she wants you alive**_.”

Another punch, kick. Steve hears it, chooses to ignore it. He can’t think about that right now. Can’t bear to even begin to imagine that you remembered him, that this was going to turn out fine. He knew the odds. He knew he couldn’t put everyone at risk, not again, just for the sake of a friend and the hope that Hydra could be erased from their mind.

But this was you.

Natasha is yelling over the screeches of metal as cars skid across the highway, turning over. 

“Yet to be proven!” 

Another  _ wham _ of his shield, crashing into the chest of a robot of solid metal, the collision thundering through his mind as his arm swings and his fist shatters through its skull and tears out its wiring. The robot crumples to the pavement; another one is grasping at his uniform, tugging, tearing, desperate for his blood. 

Now really isn’t the time to be talking. Not when Sokovia is soaring higher and higher into the sky, when Ultron is minutes, seconds from letting it fall and crash into the Earth with the intentions of mass extinction. 

Not that Natasha takes heed. “She’s fighting with us, Steve, not against us, would you give her that?”

Steve shakes his head. Another robot falls.

It wasn’t like Bucky. It couldn’t be like Bucky. When Hydra got their claws on you, they dug in deep and wouldn’t let go. Just because you were fighting alongside them, were behind some of his closest friends and protecting them, didn’t erase that you had tried, and failed, to kill him. Had tried to throw a knife into his eye, but had missed and hit the wall behind him. It wasn’t you. They wouldn’t make the same mistakes they had made with Bucky. And Steve couldn’t make the same mistakes either. 

“Fall back! We’ve got another wave coming soon. Protect the core and don’t let a single one get their hands on it!” Your voice rings through radio piece in his ear. He instinctively wants to go to you, to pull you away from this mess and send you home. But he forces himself to remember that it’s not you and races after the red-headed fire to join the rest of the team.

And you fight. Hard. Harder than you ever have before, and not once is it against the good guys. Knife after knife is embedded in another Ultron, another one falls and another one is not far behind. Your close combat is unbeatable, flawless. You do a job. Just like everyone else. And that job isn’t Steve’s life. Steve sees you, feels you at his side, keeping the robots at bay, and it hurts worse than the blows and cuts that tear up his uniform and rip into flesh. It hurts worse. Not being able to reach out, to really feel you at his side and conclude that you are real. But you aren’t. 

And once they’re gone, once the last one falls, it sets in. The price. 

“There’s worse ways to go,” Natasha murmurs to Steve, then makes some snarky comment about the view.

But Steve isn’t listening. It’s setting in. Goodbye. Did he ever say hello? 

His hand is suddenly jutting out from his side. His eyes are fixed on the edge. The air is getting thinner. His fingers brush your palm and then push through the spaces between yours. If this was it, what did he have to lose?

You jolt in surprise before that familiar warmth registers in your still clouded mind. Your eyes turn from the last ship carrying the last of the survivors way down below, find the piercing blue ones still looking at the world below, silently billowing goodbyes.

But then you relax, give his hand a squeeze. 

Steve looks at you. He notes the trickle of blood down your face from a gash in your head. He notes the smudge of grease across your cheek. Most of all, he notes those familiar eyes gazing back at him. He isn't quite ready to accept it, but what time does he have? What chance does he have to find out if that gleam in your eyes is a glimmer of you and not the you Hydra manufactured? He has minutes left. And real or not, he is man of his word. Never again will he miss his chance.

Then, in the middle of all of this madness, of this last stance as the air grows thinner and Sokovia is beginning to buckle more and more, Steve dips his head and seals his lips to your own.

And the smile that he registers on your lips when you start to kiss him back gives him a last surge of hope in the end.

And then Nick Fury is there.

And he mirrors that smile because now he knows.

There was no better way to know.

It really was you. 


End file.
